S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow Of Chernobyl

Years before STALKER was released i have looked forward to it from an early trailer and interview i saw explaining the game and all of its content.

At the time the game had cutting edge graphics, the gameplay looked amazing and non linear (which is what i like in games) it looked original and it looked overall fun.

I got the game upon its release and had a good enough PC to run it on full spec (apart from full dynamic lighting, which just wouldnt work)

On full spec the game didnt look quite as good as games that had been released at that time as this game had been in production for a long time, but you could tell from its depth that it was worth it.

You start off as a STALKER who has lost his memory, a little unimaginative, but thats only the initial plot. Almost instantly you get introduced by your main sauce of mission, a guy who runs "the shop" he will set you on your first mission which will drop you into some pretty intense combat.

You start the… more »

Years before STALKER was released i have looked forward to it from an early trailer and interview i saw explaining the game and all of its content.

At the time the game had cutting edge graphics, the gameplay looked amazing and non linear (which is what i like in games) it looked original and it looked overall fun.

I got the game upon its release and had a good enough PC to run it on full spec (apart from full dynamic lighting, which just wouldnt work)

On full spec the game didnt look quite as good as games that had been released at that time as this game had been in production for a long time, but you could tell from its depth that it was worth it.

You start off as a STALKER who has lost his memory, a little unimaginative, but thats only the initial plot. Almost instantly you get introduced by your main sauce of mission, a guy who runs "the shop" he will set you on your first mission which will drop you into some pretty intense combat.

You start the game with nothing but a suit and an empty inventory screen. Pretty much right off the bat you gain ownership to a pistol and some ammo and get put on your first mission.

This introduction to the game really sets you up to know what to expect from the following long well thought out experience.

First you will notice the graphics, not overly impressive but with the amazingly well thought out level design its easy to see that any more graphics strain might cause the game to have slow down. Things such as leaves will blow infront of your face, wind and rain affects, the day and night will change according to the time of day, its an impressive engine.

STALKER has an FPS with RPG elements, similar games such as Deus Ex and System Shock 2 and as such has a lot of NPC interaction. Every character around the "zone" is free to talk to and get information from, some will trade and others will give you side quests.

About 10 or so minutes into the start of STALKER you will have gotten used to the controls and will be on your first mission. This will introduce you to the combat system. At first impression it seems very hard to actualy hit anything, and that you may die rarther easily, but after sticking it out you will find that as you collect better weapons and adding scopes and so on you become a better shot and more powerfull, its almost an alternative way to gaining levels.

The game itself is set in a post nuclear environment caused by Chernobyl which gives you literally miles and miles of freeroaming terrain for you to explore where numerous clans roam and fight against each other whilst trying to battle off whordes of well thought out mutants.

Your main role in STALKER is to infaultrate differnt locations, such as large areas of land, underground bunkers, science labs or old decaying buildings etc... to retrieve information which allows the story to unfold.

Along your travels you will encounter various differnt types of mutants in different well designed environments, the most impressive of which are these kind of telekenetic mutants who actualy mess with your vision and hearing, which you as the player experiences, the screen can go to a kind of black and white and sound can go muffled leaving a steady beating which in some cases can be quite spookey.

STALKER is the kind of game that maybe slow to start off with but after a couple of hours of game play, you just cant put it down. Encaptivating story, combat that gets better and better as the game goes on, more interesting characters, mutants and weapons, larger more brilliantly crafted environments to explore.

One of the best games, if not the best, i have ever played.

A post-apocalyptic survivalists wet-dream come true? Oblivion, remade with guns, irradiated landfills and packs of killer mutated dogs? S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Chernobyl promises much. The real question is, does it deliver?

And thats not an easy question to answer. At the moment, I could either write a positive, glowing (possibly due to the radiation) review of an immersive, atmospheric shooter, with well-formed horror intentions, or I could write a review of a warty (again, possibly from the radiation), bugged and downright backward lag-fest. S.T.A.L.K.E.R. (henceforth spelt STALKER to save me wearing out my full-stop key) is one of those games that could just go either way.

First announced way back in 2001, with an initial release date of 2003, STALKER has been delayed from the outset. Whats more, it shows. The storyline follows a nameless adventurer (known rather melodramatically as the Marked One) trying to make a living and discover the secrets behind the war-torn,… more »

A post-apocalyptic survivalists wet-dream come true? Oblivion, remade with guns, irradiated landfills and packs of killer mutated dogs? S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Chernobyl promises much. The real question is, does it deliver?

And thats not an easy question to answer. At the moment, I could either write a positive, glowing (possibly due to the radiation) review of an immersive, atmospheric shooter, with well-formed horror intentions, or I could write a review of a warty (again, possibly from the radiation), bugged and downright backward lag-fest. S.T.A.L.K.E.R. (henceforth spelt STALKER to save me wearing out my full-stop key) is one of those games that could just go either way.

First announced way back in 2001, with an initial release date of 2003, STALKER has been delayed from the outset. Whats more, it shows. The storyline follows a nameless adventurer (known rather melodramatically as the Marked One) trying to make a living and discover the secrets behind the war-torn, radiation blasted Zone around the old Chernobyl nuclear facility, snuggled nicely in the heart of Russia. In real-life, 1986 saw the worlds largest nuclear disaster in the world, as an explosion ripped through the fourth reactor in the nuclear power plant. Radiation was spread across the globe, and the entire area was evacuated and sealed off. The game picks up from there, supposing that instead of mildly irradiating some sheep up in Scotland, the radiation leaking from the plant twisted up the land around the facility, turning animals and humans alike into slavering beasts. Not only that, the entire space-time fabric of the area has started to unravel, leaving dangerous and unpredictable anomalies all over the place. Kind of like Brighton, come to think of it.

Anyway, its in this wonderful environment that the game unceremoniously dumps you. Fade in, and youre standing before a rather ugly trader who promptly hands you a mission go find a missing messenger, retrieve the information he was carrying and bring it back. Fine. I would have done that, had it not been for the extremely low performance my machine was delivering at this stage. The textures were messed up, the FPS was lounging somewhere around 6 per second, and the audio was stuttering. Not a great start. After a lot of swearing, tweaking and adjusting various settings, both within the game and within my driver options, it was better. Be warned, however this is not a game that likes Vista. Or modern graphics cards. This is where the prolonged development time shows the game has not been designed to work on new technology. Duel core machines, Vista, new graphics cards all these interfere with the running of the game. Whereas other games have beautiful textures, character models that are almost photorealistic, STALKER is ugly and jagged.

Nevertheless, I persevered. Id spent twenty quid on this, and by the Gods, I was going to play it. And Im glad I did. While the textures (mostly brown and grey) and the character models (also mostly brown and grey) look sub-standard, they do fit the atmosphere of the game exceptionally well. Chernobyl is not the sort of place where you expect to see colourful, vibrant foliage or townspeople dressed in their finery. It is the sort of place where you expect grey skys, grey earth and brown and grey mutant dogs chewing at your ankles. It might be miserable, but it works. You'' soon be sucked in, and afraid to look back.

Atmospheric, buggy, terrifying, ugly. All appropriate, all adding and detracting in equal measures. STALKER is a complex beast, but worth the effort

O.K, some things really need clearing up here. STALKER is an awesome game, I do not understand why people rate this game to be bad, I brought it because £10 you can't go wrong, so I thought what the heck. I really wasnt expecting much but dam was I wrong! This game is out this world......

Alot of "People" said about the game having loads of bugs, well I downloaded patch 1.004 before playing and everything so far is perfect (about 10 hours in), and I heard stories from "People" about them having 8800 and still having lag issues, well I tell you they are wrong, I have x2 6800 ultras AMD fx-55 2.4ghz processor and 2gbs of OCZ ram and I have 80% of the game max'd, full AA/AF and static lighting (It seems the people who complained prob had HDR lighting on, really does cripple the game).

Also I think people complain as they think its just a casual FPS game, well no. This is an RPG / FPS game, there is loads of quests, loads of weapons, suits, reputation, everything you would… more »

O.K, some things really need clearing up here. STALKER is an awesome game, I do not understand why people rate this game to be bad, I brought it because £10 you can't go wrong, so I thought what the heck. I really wasnt expecting much but dam was I wrong! This game is out this world......

Alot of "People" said about the game having loads of bugs, well I downloaded patch 1.004 before playing and everything so far is perfect (about 10 hours in), and I heard stories from "People" about them having 8800 and still having lag issues, well I tell you they are wrong, I have x2 6800 ultras AMD fx-55 2.4ghz processor and 2gbs of OCZ ram and I have 80% of the game max'd, full AA/AF and static lighting (It seems the people who complained prob had HDR lighting on, really does cripple the game).

Also I think people complain as they think its just a casual FPS game, well no. This is an RPG / FPS game, there is loads of quests, loads of weapons, suits, reputation, everything you would see in a RPG but its an FPS... amazing!

So to all those who don't want to buy it through bugs and all the bad stuff people say, well there is NONE!

Best £10 I've spent in a very long time, buy it!